Tor Network Diversity
The Tor network relies on diversity for security. But currently two ASN (Hetzner and OVH) make up 20% of overall network consensus weight. This is unsurprising considering those services offer very cheap servers and bandwidth, but that amount of centralisation is not healthy for the network. I’d like to recommend a couple of alternative, affordable providers for people thinking of setting up their own relay.
G-Core Labs
I started using G-Core Labs a while ago. For €4.95 a month you can get an unmetered 200 Mbit/s VPS and they are fine with you running Tor relays as long as they aren’t exit nodes. Service is good, and the support are always quick to respond and deal with any issues.
Frantech Solutions
Frantech is well known for their pro-Tor stance, and will even let you host exit nodes. They charge $15 a month for a 100Mbit/s VPS though you can burst up to 1GBit/s. They offer servers in the US (New York, Miami, and Las Vegas) and Luxembourg.
Conclusion
Ultimately, if you are setting up a relay and it has to be Hetzner/OVH or nothing, then do still set it up with them. I have on with OVH, and a relay at one of those providers is still better for the network than no relay at all. But if possible, try to add some diversity. Have one relay with OVH and another with Frantech or G Core for example. The more distributed the network, the more resistant it is to surveillance.